Author: Desp(e)rat(e) measures

8-7-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

While I did not want to rush with an Interlude earlier as news was flowing fast, I wanted to cover in depth and very honestly a very key and at times sensitive topic for France, Europe and the world: Where is France today and why? Since he became President in 2017, Macron has remade France to a great extent into a modern country for the 21^st century. He reformed employment, leading to 2 million new jobs and 6 million new businesses in seven years, making France a business-friendly country. Inflation was also well-managed. Paris became a hub for tech start-ups and rivaled London as a top financial center, while business taxes were cut along with unproductive wealth taxes. Education was boosted and pensions were reformed. France grew faster than its EU peers and poverty rates were below the EU average. It is possible that those achievements were not felt by the average voter, with European parliamentary elections showing a rejection of Macron’s electoral grouping in ways that were both drastic and surprising. And to be fair, the public deficit expanded to markedly new heights making the overall French economic picture less impressive. This Interlude will try to go through the much deeper roots of these results and explain why France is where it is today while democratic governing is challenging in our times.   

As the Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN), the far-right Eurosceptic party, created the huge dual surprise of finishing first with a 33% stake in the first snap election round but unexpectedly not securing an absolute or even relative majority in the second round, I still wanted to focus on the roots of its increased popularity. I wanted to focus on the RN given the future, as it may keep growing and eventually secure power in France if traditional politics kept failing, however governing is challenging. RN lost today but France did not yet win. France is now going through a chaotic period with no clear path for an obvious government. It is clear that the “republican wall” worked again, even if not ideal for voters who would like to vote “for” rather than “against” a program, while also creating governing issues for France.

The results of the European parliamentary elections in France, often the case for a protest vote, led to Macron’s unexpected and, to some, gamble of dissolving the National Assembly. His decision, leading to snap parliamentary elections, which can be controversial, was made to create a reasonable centrist wall assisted by moderate socialists and center rightists against the RN, whose deep founding roots go back to the Vichy period (some French Waffen SS having even been with Marine Le Pen’s father’s leadership of the Front National or National Front when he created the original party in 1972). Macron’s admittedly bold move was put in jeopardy when various parties on the left, some with little common policies, values or principles, unexpectedly (for many observers and indeed Macron himself) decided to use the far-right and the dissolution as a way of trying to seize power electorally by presenting the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front or NFP), a tactical and opportunistic gathering established in four days, that could win “only” as it would oppose the RN. In doing so, these far-left and center-left parties decided to recreate the aura and forces led by Léon Blum which were opposed to the rising far-right in 1936. To some extent it was also a more drastic flashback to when the Socialists and then stronger Communists joined forces under candidate Mitterrand to defeat mainstream President Giscard in 1981 under the banner of the Common Program – an experiment that did not work out very well, not even for the French economy, and collapsed two years into Mitterrand’s mandate.     

Before I start, and as some of you may know, I should stress that I grew up in a Gaullist family. In my early twenties, I was part in 1981-1982 of the then young Sarkozy-led national youth leadership team of the RPR (Rassemblement pour la République or National Gathering for the Republic, founded by Jacques Chirac and the then Gaullist party of the day) as Socialist François Mitterrand took over France. My French political involvement stopped then as I opted for an “American Dream”-fueled personal reengineering and spent 35 of the last 40 years outside France, unwittingly becoming an admittedly easy poster child for the hot topic of “immigration.” Since 2017 and his first run at the French presidency I have supported Macron as reflecting the political center or a better balanced, non-extremist approach to politics.  To some critics, Macron embodies a certain French elitism, which I always found should ideally reflect a journey leading the most able individuals to lead a country like France. While I liked the man and never found him that “arrogant” as I often heard – as if a President of the French Republic had to be low key and humble not to irritate the sensitive ones – he certainly made the mistake, not to dissolve the National Assembly, but to forget that political parties, like his own, do still matter. He never really built “En Marche” (Going Forward) and then Renaissance (Renew) as they should have been, leading to a much lower presence and impact in the domestic political scene as if only the Elysée presidential leadership mattered, this possibly reinforcing the arrogant image we know. In other words, Macron, while an effective and sound leader for our challenging times, behaved like a de Gaulle while not really having saved France like “le grand Charles”.  To be fair, his tactical approach in the 2017 presidential elections had been to sell “himself” while marginalizing if not destroying both the erstwhile “parties of government” which were the Socialist and Gaullist parties (the latter by then Les Républicains). He succeeded in marginalizing both politically moderate parties which gave rise to the extremes with the NR and the far-left France Insoumise (Unbowed France) led by former Trotskyist Mélanchon, the latter which is today the core force of the NFP. Some of Les Républicains MPs (including Eric Ciotti, their quite radical, Nice-based, President) joined forces post-European elections with the NR out of sheer existential need, even if losing their political souls and roots – de facto imploding their party. If anything, Macron unwittingly created the electoral rise of the extremes even if he likely never saw the emergence of the incoherent NFP that hurt his bet for centrist Renaissance (or Ensemble, another new name for the elections) to defeat the RN like in 2022, via a republican coalition as the sole option to do so.    

This snap election put the RN in a stronger position in French politics even if it did not secure a relative or absolute majority as many would have clearly expected. It is thus worth understanding how and why such an extremist party was ever on the verge of power in France. There is no doubt that Marine Le Pen, daughter of the true founder of the RN (then Front National before the name was changed in 2018), worked hard over the last decade to make her party less extreme, even if still with a far-right flavor, making it more appealing to a wider electorate. When the original party was founded, it was clearly focused on the arrival of North African workers in the 1970s (mostly Algerians post-1962 independence from France), providing a taint of racism to the program of the then Front National. We are now fifty years later. The changes led by Marine Le Pen to make the party more widely acceptable (even if national identity remains a key RN facet) did not make her party and key members any more competent to manage a country like France but the RN still stuck to a focus on securing votes rather than being a party of government. As for the left wing NFP coalition that was agreed within four days, it put together parties at times with little in common: Socialists, Communists, Ecologists and Far-Left, making for an unlikely government should they ever win an absolute majority in the legislative elections, even always a highly challenging possibility. It is clear, however, that the sudden electoral rise of the RN gave the opportunity for all the disparate left and far-left parties to get together, even if they could never work together, to show a fictitious gathering solely aimed at beating the far-right based on “very broad” republican values and principles but not on policies, especially of the economic kind.       

What we saw in a key election with a very high participation (66.7% and 67.1% in the first and second rounds respectively) was the electoral rise of two largely government-incompetent, if not disparate for the NFP, political groups. The NFP, created opportunistically by leaders with irreconcilable differences, making endless promises to many voters wanting less taxes for themselves and more for the wealthy, more state subsidies, public sector wage increases, an abandonment of the retirement age reform, pension increases or the return of the wealth tax.  Given its absence of serious consideration for its funding and the economic damage to follow, this opportunistic and vote-grabbing program led the French investment and business communities to almost prefer the RN, which they assumed would be more reasonable or indeed manageable should they ever win. Before the first round, polls (later confirmed) unexpectedly showed the NFP with results below those of its constituent parts during the European election, this reflecting its clear lack of internal coherence and reduced overall support. It was very hard, if not impossible, to see such an opportunistic coalition leading to any stable form of government, even if a wall against the hard-right extremism of the day – eventually a winning wall but with its centrist partners.  As for the RN, which led in the polls, the economic program seemed very vague, besides less funding for the EU (though staying in it and keeping the Euro unlike in the past), even if naturally vote-grabbing, its main focus being immigration and linked security, all flavored with an anti-“remote Paris elite” message. The RN made sure to stress policies like forbidding dual nationals in sensitive top public service and government jobs, like in the defense sector (even if some RN officials also mentioned a past French-Moroccan Minister of the Education as a case in point). Another key RN mantra was to restore “order” in society, hence the uniform in schools and addressing teachers with the formal “vous” – proposals which incidentally might appeal to quite a few non-RN voters.

Most neutral observers (if ever possible) focused on economic impact that would see the NFP triggering a capital flight while the RN would create a debt crisis that would not help France’s already high public deficit. Having a prime minister like Jordan Bardella, aged 28 with only a high school degree (even if with the highest marks) – not a fact often stressed as being sensitive – and zero “real” job experience apart from his political engagement at an early age, would be a drastic change for a country that was “managed” since 1945 by very educated (usually highly selective ENA graduates) and experienced individuals on all sides of the mainstream political spectrum. Such a clear and unusual leadership move naturally fit the anti-elite focus of the RN and some of its supporters. Bardella’s surprising statement a few days before the first round, that he would only go to Matignon (the Prime Minister’s office) if the RN obtained an absolute majority, made some wonder about the actual meaning of such a statement as if he might have felt, deep down, that he was unsurprisingly not equipped for the job – indeed a simple reality fact. Focusing on him, it is interesting to see the Taylor Swift impact – without, so far, the amnesia effect we now know happens at or after her concerts – that Bardella (and indeed the “Bardella mania”) can have among young voters who see themselves in him, especially if coming from poor backgrounds and likely without many degrees at hand. This picture would change slightly if looking more closely at Bardella‘s father, amusingly of Franco-Algerian descent, who was a successful entrepreneur while his son went to private Catholic schools, something the RN does not much mention, preferring the tough Seine-Saint Denis suburbs, high rise building, and Italian-emigrated single mother story on offer. With all due respect, Bardella, admittedly very engaging and well-dressed, may be the most recent and successful political case of primarily focusing on grabbing votes regardless of what comes after if winning – including policy implementation and sheer abilities. Such a tactical or indeed marketing approach is not a surprise if studying the challenging struggles of Le Pen’s party to convince voters over decades. The RN found the correct winning and even refreshing “medium” for our times so kudos are rightly deserved in terms of political acumen, this even if not fully winning today.            

It is of course easy for some of us, also given our levels of education and careers, to not understand why some people would back extremist politicians who have no government experience and only offer simple solutions to complex issues in order to get votes. The far-right parties, and their politicians, are usually not government-focused as their aim was always to increase their forever minority electoral stake over the past many decades. I grew up in the 14^th arrondissement of Paris where Jean-Marie Le Pen launched his first and forever losing legislative candidature in 1972. Over the years, I would have never thought Marine Le Pen could reach the second round of the presidential election in 2017 and 2022 and be on the verge of Matignon, via Bardella, in 2024. Marine le Pen, while clearly the daughter of her father (she sure can thank him for where she is today, even if she tactically expelled him from the party in 2015 as part of her reengineering drive), eventually saw that the best route to increase her party’s popularity was to make it more acceptable, less autocratic in its program and clearly distant of its fatherly roots. She certainly succeeded, even if the tools are still much election-focused like the selection of a very young and naturally untested Bardella to appeal to new, social media-inspired, generations, who incidentally do not share the memories of WW2 and her father’s party and want a “quick change” to their own fortunes, all the more if many of them have not followed traditional higher educational paths, which they may feel should matter less in these new times.

One has to be fair, as the RN voters and supporters are by and large not “neo-Nazis” or even far-right extremists as we defined it (some historically and ideologically are of course). Many are primarily upset by the immigration slide they felt in their country for decades and the gradual lack of national identity, while a French approach to Woke takes place and the “small ethnic white” is no longer associated with the homeland, also due to globalization, in spite of its history and what was France. Immigration and national identity are the key natural drivers of RN supporters (along with associated security), which are deemed more important and easier to understand than sheer economic matters, even if the RN is still weak in its proposals on this latter key front that could hurt the country very seriously. Contrary to what James Carville famously said in the US elections of 1992, this time “it’s the economy, stupid” does not apply even if it should. Cost of living anxiety is naturally always a French electoral issue as if reflecting the perennial French state of unhappiness about their own social conditions. The RN supporters, however, deeply feel more that “it is about who we are”. Immigration is another name for national identity which is cautiously handled as it can be taken as racism in this context if too carelessly used. It is a very challenging approach, all the more as we know that this national identity drive is directed against core Islamists but also French Muslim nationals (and to some extent, though not as much, black Africans even if the composition of the French football team has had a healthy impact on this sad angle). Many of these immigrants came to France generations ago in the 1970s as France needed to build its roads and bridges, then leading President Giscard to set up the ‘family gathering” program to make it more livable for them. This strategic move led to the development of large non-ethnic French populations usually living in the suburbs of Paris and Lyons if not “taking over” cities like Marseilles in the south of France, closer to Algeria. Today the Muslim population of France (citizens and non-citizens) is the largest one in Europe (some would add akin to its Jewish population, but on a different scale). A side issue has also been the much higher birth rate among these new French at a time when the natives’ own went markedly down over past decades, creating a real issue in France even if following a European if not Western trend. It is clear that the French colonial history explains the strong Arab component of the French population (again, many of them fully-fledged citizens) in many suburbs of these large cities and that integration could never be smooth – even if with hindsight more government focus should have been applied. And then ghettoization clearly took place as the native French did not want “mixity”, this helped by the limited financial resources of these legal immigrants and their families who could not afford key city centers (all these issues often gradually creating “zones of non-law” in the banlieues where the police often do not even enter these days, even if the vast majority of French nationals of Arab and African origin residing in these parts are law-abiding citizens). One of the RN boosters may have been the memories of the suburban riots of the late summer 2023 where thefts and destruction were focused on the very areas where the non-native local population or at times its third French-born generation lived (average age of the culprits: 17 showing the urgent policy needs to deal with the issues at hand). Politically, it is also interesting to see that many of these new French today vote for the far-left France Insoumise party (when not also activists), which is also the leading member of the NFP making it more understanding on immigration issues – and de facto one of its weak points (with higher taxation) for many voters who wonder who they should support today. One of the appealing features of the RN program to its voters is to prevent children born in France from foreign parents from securing the citizenship (a standard practice in the US even today), a feature also linked to the much higher birth rate among non-natives. It should be stressed that, unlike in the US, illegal immigration is not the key issue (even if RN voters would disagree), France not having a serious border or “wall” problem like in the US and not dealing with “unwanted boats” like in Southern Italy. Unlike for Germany, France did not deal with a massive influx of refugees from Syria in the mid-2010s, which Chancellor Merkel largely welcomed out of key needs for workers to develop the German economy (similarly Ukraine did not provide a strong influx of refugees of the type seen in Poland). Liberal democratic and “centrist” governments, especially in Europe, have been notoriously weak in tackling issues like immigration, especially from Africa, so as to ensure that an always challenging integration was well-managed and indeed lived well by their native nationals, usually fearing being too easily accused of sheer racism – and they are paying the price after 50 years of benign neglect. To be fair, many RN voters do not live in the “non-French” suburbs they decry nor do they suffer directly from any aspects of what is an unsuccessful integration, but they see the news (social media not helping either) while the RN exploits them, working efficiently on their desire for “change” in many areas to steer voters away from traditional political parties that ruled France for decades. And it is fair to also realize, quite aside from the hot immigration issue, that a lot of rural French areas feel lost and disenfranchised today, this driving some local voters against a historically centralized France and global Paris elite at a time when large cities keep growing. Change at all levels is therefore the key driver for many French voters, however desperate and gambling in nature it may be. Change was also the more understanding driver in the last British elections after 14 years of Tory “leadership” and a chaotic Brexit experience. Change is also found as a top driver for voters even if governments have an acceptable track record as seen across Western democracies and a cause for concern for Joe Biden when facing an erratic and populist Trump in November, all the more adding to his age and debating performance issues.            

It is a fact that younger generations of voters – many of whom support the RN – do not experience the repulsion felt by older voters regarding the name of Le Pen and its family past (the largest age group of non-RN voters is the 70+ year one, likely as memories of WW2 and Jean-Marie Le Pen stuck more easily). Newer generations comprising young voters do not share the same memories, direct or indirect, of WW2 and its aftermath. It is also fair to say that many RN candidates and now Députés are young, many of them women, very presentable, nice and engaging as seen in the various French TV interviews during the election. In a positive drive, even if politically-motivated, RN elected officials have also been known to bring back old school local politics by getting closer to their residents like in Hénin-Beaumont or Perpignan that were the first large cities to go the RN way. In many ways they provide a clear image break with the historical hard far-right personalities known to an older public but also those seen in recent years. To be fair and true to tradition, a few RN candidates were also unexpectedly found to be legally ineligible, not wanting to debate their opponents, having posted racist and homophobic comments on social media while one lady candidate having to withdraw due to an old Facebook photo of her wearing a Nazi officer cap or another one, nevertheless finishing first, not having been seen on official electoral posters if that were ever possible – this also showing a real internal vetting weakness even if preparation time was scarce. The main problem with RN supporters is that they forget or do not want to see that RN leaders (or even local candidates) are not skilled or experienced to govern and usually poorly trained to deal with the intricacies of economic issues and the implications of politically-motivated policies. It was no surprise to see Bardella, clearly focused on the RN’s economic program pre-first round, to manage the concerns of many, showing reasonableness – read readiness to forget some drastic proposals – flavored with reassuringly old-style political messaging. It is also a fact nobody dwells upon the fact that the French, compared with other nations, are by and large not known to be experts on how the economy works – or not. It is even possible that the simple and easy “the rich will pay” also speaks to the nation’s colorful and engaging Bastille Day roots (even if the RN is not as economically radical voter-focused as the far left given its historical constituency and main natural focus). On the fun side, polls showed one week before the first round that a majority of voters (assumingly RN ones) trusted Marine Le Pen most on the economy – “trust” being the right word as there is no evidence of her knowledge in that field. Time will tell but it was clear that the RN leadership was already backtracking on much of their bold economic program, which today is vastly unfunded, this even if RN voters do not mind and are ready to see what happens, truly hoping for the best and indeed wanting “change”, however still drastic after seven years of Macronism and indeed decades of traditional parties in power. One strange, but expected feature as it is quite French in nature, was the total lack of interest on the part of RN voters in foreign policy issues at a time when geopolitics are back on the front scene of all governments with clear impacts on daily lives of citizens, Ukraine being a case in point. The prospect of WW3 and how to manage or avoid it in a productive way for France and Europe was not a top issue at all, also maybe as the war in Ukraine has been around for quite a long time by now. On the reassuring side and constitutionally, it should be stressed that French foreign and defense policies would still be the remit of the President in the extreme case of a “cohabitation” even if Marine Le Pen would disagree on the latter and budgetary features would be overseen by the government.   

On a side key note, and while foreign policy was not a core electoral issue, it is clear that the massive “October 7” Hamas terrorist attack on Israel deepened an RN “detoxification” effort witnessed over the last decade. Marine Le Pen, while breaking with her father’s party roots, decided to focus on Islamism as the enemy while stressing that her party was not anti-Semitic and now indeed a strong supporter of Israel. This gradual shift led many Jewish voters, including leading personalities, like the renowned 88-year old Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, to declare, to the surprise of many, their support for the RN in these elections. Today nearly 20% of French Jewish voters would vote for the RN, this reinforced by the far-left France Insoumise’s pro-Palestinian positions and keffiyeh-wearing members seen at many protest marches. These reinforced RN changes are also happening as a form of Gaza war anti-Semitism has been on the rise in some quarters in France, home to the largest Jewish population in Europe, this more likely creating confrontations of various types allowing the RN to focus on anti-Islamism (Israeli officials even congratulated the RN for their now very official stance). On a not unexpected note, the renunciation of an always unofficial party anti-Semitism by Marine Le Pen might not have been followed by the core grassroots who still find issues with both local Jewish and Muslim Arab communities, a feature that must make her 96-year old father, convicted for anti-Semitic remarks and hate speech, smile and the topic of family discussions, assuming father and daughter are still on speaking terms (in terms of hate speech, French readers may remember the awful “Monsieur Durafour-crématoire” play on words referring to Nazi concentration camp ovens when addressing a government minister in 1988).                 

The second and final electoral round involved tactical policies of withdrawals agreed between the so-called “republican” parties or indeed election groupings (mainly NFP and Ensemble, Macron’s election grouping) to beat the RN candidate. This approach was at times not uniform as while all NFP candidates, including far-left ones, would step down if having come in the third position in the first round, some Ensemble candidates decided not to withdraw to assist a far-left candidate even part of the NFP, as deemed un-republican, even to beat the RN. And Les Républicains, keeping to their unusual approach, decided not to back officially any other party candidate (de facto meaning not supporting a competing far-left candidate against RN so not following the proposed anti-RN “Republican pact” for the final round but also eventually having their own voters casting their ballots for the RN candidate against the NFP – if indeed wanted by them on a case by case basis). As the second round unfolded, we saw the RN surprisingly missing its expected target while the NFP coalition was securing a relative majority in Parliament, albeit a very small one. It is clearly a major shock and a serious management challenge for the RN as everybody, including them, believed they would finish first (and not third), even if they naturally stress how happy they are about their real but small progress in terms of députés. The Macron group, while finishing second in the election, is still the first “real” or certainly coherent parliamentary group in the National Assembly given the coalition nature of the left to far-left NFP that comprised four major parties and smaller gatherings for these elections. As no party secured an absolute majority of 289 seats, none will not be able to automatically govern France directly for the duration of Macron’s term until 2027 in what is known in French political folklore as “cohabitation”, like the Mitterrand-Chirac duet in 1986 between the President and the winning opposition.  

Things are now unfolding as to how France will be governed, the only certainty being that the country will not enjoy a stable or clear path with a fractured National Assembly providing no clear government, at least as of today. It is possible that a RN-inspired government, would have been far more moderate than many rightly feared, while following the current and previously unexpected Georgia Meloni model in Italy. While Marine Le Pen had started toning down some of RN’s economic proposals before the first voting round, Bardella clearly stated that a RN government would not change French foreign policy directions, including in relation to Ukraine (this in spite of past pro-Russian feelings among the RN leadership and its financing history as seen during the 2017 presidential election). The economic impact of the RN in sole power would have been very strong in terms of public deficits, which are a key French issue these days, also for the EU, even under the deficit-spending Macron leadership. The likely path following a relative majority, whatever its eventual nature, now results from a “hung parliament” (one might wish if being caustic) leading to a caretaker-likely technocratic kind of government à la Mario Draghi, but highly constrained in what it can achieve (without the very Gaullist censure motion known as “Article 49.3” allowing the circumvention of the National Assembly) by the sheer weight of the RN at the legislative Palais Bourbon.      

Assuming that France is not going to be totally frozen in its governance, it is clear that Macron will need to work with a coalition, whether it is a wanted one or not. It is unlikely, if not impossible, that Macron and the incoherent NFP could work together, whatever the latter’s results even if still implying a very small relative majority in a fractured parliament – given its far-left component even if its other more moderate parts still might be open to it. It is clearly unlikely that all members of NFP could work together as the NFP of today in any government. It would also be more possible that a partnership between Macron with the Socialists, Ecologists and some non-RN Républicains could work out. Looking at potential scenarios pre-final election results, a governance driven by some sort of “understanding” with a practical RN could have been an option, had they secured a relative majority – though a distant one if something better for Macron could have been achieved – even if many on both sides would not have been be very happy about this outcome. As mentioned by French political scientists, the competence factor, which is a key issue for the RN, could have been dealt with thanks to experienced “opportunists” (maybe from the center right Les Républicains for those now working with Le Pen) self-servingly interested in an unexpected comeback and top ministerial front roles to rationalize the moderation of the RN and save the day in terms of government and policy management. This most-needed input would have gone with a reversal from the RN (as already seen, pragmatism being naturally their key driver electorally) on the most controversial economic policies formerly on offer like the retirement age reform, while funding would be a major driver in what stays from their program, all the more given the existing public deficit. This dual practical shift and arrangement would have to be managed without losing the RN’s soul and most importantly its voting base so it is very likely that immigration and security policies would have stayed and would have had to be adopted by the new government under the three remaining years of the Macron presidency. One unknown factor given France’s well-known experienced and highly trained top civil servants, traditionally an apolitical corps, is whether they would have been amenable to working alongside such an unusual scheme with and for, even if indirectly, a far-right populist parliamentary leadership with little credibility in terms of sound government experience.          

Time will tell, but Europe and the world need a stable French government, all the more as we go more deeply into the third year of the war in Ukraine while the electorally ignored geopolitical issues and key relation with the EU (that also looks at the high French public deficit) will strongly come back to the fore sooner rather than later. In addition to the likely economic backlash of an RN (or NFP) economic program, if ever fully implemented, would have been the damages done in terms of potential reductions of net EU funding or Brussels’ reactions to excessive Single Market rule-breaking subsidies to French agriculture and businesses. Such bold French moves could also have led to similar stances from member states where the far-right is also increasingly active and ultimately the weakening of the EU. Another RN-led immigration-related management issue would have been the possible infringements of the European Convention on Human Rights. Such French electoral developments could have also possibly created a crisis of the Euro given the large size of the French economy together with highly negative French stock exchange reactions as seen in a telling post-first round preview. And it is not clear, in spite of reassuring words from the RN, whether one of the indirect winners of these elections would not have sat in Moscow. While his civil war comments may have been overstated, there is no doubt that Macron was counting on the next three years to show the French, in a worst-case scenario, how unequipped an RN-led or -inspired government would have been, leading to a defeat of Le Pen in the 2027 presidential election (and twenty years or more back in opposition). Although we should also realize that one historically key problem with far-right parties and leaders is that when they win elections – even if not really the case constitutionally in a potential best RN case scenario – it is often the last time you have one. Assuming new legislative elections were still on the cards as a way to provide France with a more coherent leadership, the earliest one that could be called constitutionally by the President, would be in late June 2025 after twelve months of potential democratic chaos. Obviously, and while it may take some time to get to a sound governmental way forward, we should all hope for historical homegrown Cartesian Reason to prevail – the sooner, the better. 

On a final note, it is useful to note that “vote-grabbing via easy solutions to solve complex issues” (admittedly one of my blog tenets since 2018) as offered by far-right populists is a current trend in our democratic world globally. While these “solutions” would often fail, also as government and management competence are not key features of populists, they reflect two things: i) the need for “change” and trying what was not tried before, even if at times unfounded and out of despair or exasperation and ii) the fact that governing in a democratic context is challenging today as voters want quick results, and are tired of what they see happening or actually not with traditional governments, at times for good reasons. Lastly, it is indeed possible that Macron’s early worst-case scenario feeling, that three years of the RN at or nearly at the top of France would flesh out its shortcomings, is right but it is also risky. As stated but it needs stressing, governing democracies is very challenging today and often electorally loss-making as we see everywhere hence why autocrats (also in essence), once in power, do away with (real) elections and indeed democracy. Having said that, even an illiberal Iran surprised us in the right way with its latest election results. Time will tell for France as the plot is unfolding so let’s keep hoping – and working – for the best.  It certainly could have been worse for France as most polls consistently showed, making pollsters the real unexpected losers of this snap French election.

Warmest regards,

Serge

28-6-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

Many of you expected me to give you an Interlude on what is happening in France with the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Macron and the new legislative elections that will take place in the aftermath of the European parliamentary elections. Given the importance of the moment for France and Europe and the constant flow of news, I will send you an interlude right after the final results in the week of 8^th July so as to provide a calm explanation of what happened and is to be expected—hoping that the center may still “hold” even if the polls are not reassuring, given the odd electoral set-up that has unfolded.  

I would like now to cover another, admittedly very long, book (hence the extensive Book Note) on our new challenging geopolitical times that naturally focuses on China’s rise and Russia’s invasion, both main features of “New Cold Wars” (“and America’s struggle to defend the West”, a key sub-heading), the latest book from David Sanger, the well-known New York Times journalist and CNN contributor. In doing so I realize that this is yet another book on our current geopolitics, but this author goes deeply into the roots of what is happening today, linking history to our current times. The new cold wars are naturally those dealing with Russia and China in the 2020s. Russia, which was the old Cold War superpower, nemesis of the West gradually slid into irrelevance, leading to an aggressive existential search for a deemed lost glorious past. China, that was irrelevant economically and geopolitically to the West at the beginning of the new century, grew into an aspiring world leader, even if struggling demographically and economically in recent years. The two countries at times aligning their diverging interests against the West, whilst not yet creating an axis, while their respective relationship positions changing from senior to junior would-be partner, this to the likely dismay of Putin. “New Cold Wars” is very detailed and full of personal accounts, each chapter a potential book of its own, but also making for an amazing puzzle with all its pieces put together uniquely describing US foreign policy and its struggles in an increasingly-new era of post-old Cold War 21^st century.                  

As I write these lines, and feel the link between past and present (as seen with the return of history), I have to mention the recent D-Day 80^th anniversary celebrations in Normandy, where we saw the emotional event combining veterans in their nineties and sometimes older with young men and women in their late teens singing liberation songs. Those young singers were of the same age as that of the veterans who started saving democracy on Omaha Beach and at the Pointe du Hoc in early June 1944. It was the most vivid demonstration of what matters in an amazingly emotional way. It was also a message for those who favor an ill-fated and self-harming isolationism of the 1930s type in America, while reminding us in Europe that Ukraine matters, and existential revanchist powers lost in searching for their imperial past should be fought without question. This picture was all the more relevant when so many populist and far right political parties have increased their positions among European electorates, at times threatening to destroy the social and economic stability of key countries like France, on the back of easy answers to complex issues, vote grabbing initiatives, and a challenging era when many voters have become lost, not helped by the rise of social media and the growing inability to understand what matters in our societies.   

As Sanger stresses, there is no doubt that at the beginning of the new century, and a decade away from the end of the Cold War, there was a clear feeling that a democratic (even if chaotic) Russia, and a rapidly growing China could be part of the Western-led order for everybody’s benefit. It was a time when George W. Bush could see into Putin’s soul and the latter would sing with Oscar ceremony attendees. 9-11 helped the US and Russia get closer, but as terrorism and the war in Iraq consumed the former, the latter showed it would ultimately play its traditional game which was not a peaceful one, as seen with the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and before, in 2007, the massive hacking campaign against Tallinn that we almost forgot. Fiona Hill, who was working at the White House under Trump before being a key critic like many of her former colleagues, had a very thorough take on Putin, stressing his anger at the former Soviet leaders who had destroyed the Russian empire of the Tsars, and could not keep the ill-conceived Soviet Union thriving while destroying the very essence of Russia as a nation.

Sanger stresses the need for the West’s willingness to integrate Russia in its fold, which Putin was seemingly not opposed to in his initial years as trade and globalization were helping. However, Putin felt that the West was not playing a fair game, feeling that Russia was losing its former status, all while NATO was expanding its membership to its very borders. NATO expansion, which was more an integration move focused on former Soviet states and allies than a hostile drive against Russia, became a focal point for Putin, leading eventually to strange statements that NATO was about to invade Russia in early 2022, hence “officially” the reason behind move against Ukraine. As Sanger describes it, the key turn in the Russian-Western dialogue happened at a Munich security conference in the Spring of 2007 where Putin, to the surprise of all attendees, started to voice strongly unheard resentments against a West aiming to marginalize a Russia which was only still heard out of courtesy as it was a nuclear power. We then go through the almost amusing Putin-Medvedev show of switching from President and Prime Minister in 2008-2012 only to get to a time of the first major demonstrations in large Russian cities, leading to a liberal Boris Nemtsov and then (initially controversial) Alexei Navalny taking key opposition roles, only to meet terrible fates later. 

The book is clearly focused on both Russia and China, peppered by Sanger’s personal stories and dealings with key players over the last 30 years. We see Robert Rubin, the Clinton Treasury Secretary and ex-Goldman Sachs leader, who went to Beijing for the first time only in 1997, as China had not been that relevant to the world order or American interests (and indeed Wall Street) before then. It is interesting to see how one man, Zhu Rongji, now forgotten, who was a former Mayor of Shanghai and head of the People’s Bank of China, was the driving force in the late 1990s in the economic and trade opening of China, to the point of marketing key US business leaders across America to ensure they would lobby the Clinton White House and Congress to make sure what we would vividly see then as globalization, or peace through trade and investments. One of the key features of Sanger’s focus on China at the time is that, while the US wanted to integrate it in the global economy (also as it served its own interests) the country already started its hacking and proprietary theft campaigns under the George W. Bush era, well before the start of the 2012 Xi leadership that became known for a more assertive, if not aggressive, approach to bilateral relations and positions on key matters like Taiwan (even before the famed Nancy Pelosi visit in the summer of 2022 that triggered, or actually facilitated, expected self-serving reactions from Beijing looking for strategic contention). Sanger devotes a full chapter about the various phases of the Pelosi visit and its impact, as well as a history of the US-China and US-Taiwan relations, making us remember, as many of us forgot or did not know, that China was only diplomatically recognized as the sole Chinese country by the Carter administration in 1979.    

As Sanger points out, and looking back at Russia since the end of last century, one could be forgiven for seeing Putin suffering from a seven-year itch from Chechnya in 1999-2000, Georgia in 2007, Crimea and Donbas in 2014 and finally the whole of Ukraine in 2022. All while the US and the West did not really see a Russian return to existential imperialism, as shown with how US administrations did not want to re-engage in a fight with Moscow, this until February 2022, also as the main issue in Washington was “China-China-China” and how to contain its fast rise and less than acceptable ways of asserting it. By clearly crossing the line in February 2022 Putin ensured that the West, led by the US even if not at its best of domestic political times, would focus on Moscow again. There was no clear willingness on the part of most of the Obama administration to confront Russia, partly as the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences had left some tough marks, but also as not many thought Putin would ever go further than Crimea, which many in Russia and indeed Crimea felt was Russian. And then there were economic imperatives with Chancellor Merkel leading to the Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline project that would see Germany and Europe getting more energy and as she hoped would ensure a more rational Putin (Germans were always very pragmatic in dealings with Putin’s Russia as shown with Gerhard Schroeder negotiating the Nord Stream 1 agreement and then going to the board of Rosneft as he left his premiership, enjoying “extravagant” remunerations). One of America’s key challenges at the time stressed by Sanger was its inability to shift from an understandably long focus on counter-terrorism and its associated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq post-9-11, to return efficiently to face a mix of direct superpower competition with an ever-rising and aggressive China and an “existentially hostile” Russia as gradually seen from the early 2010s. 

One of the key early mistakes of President Trump and most of his team was to concentrate on trade relations with, and imposing huge tariffs on, China while not seeing Beijing’s core focus on technology and military dominance in Asia and more globally. China was undertaking many aggressive below-the-radar initiatives via its intelligence services that were dismissed by the White House as minor demonstrations of a rising power that was trying harder to exist. The “Trump” section covering his presidency is full of anecdotes, often new ones, showing the man reacting to world events in ways that can be expected. One of the main stories is his dealing with newly elected President Zelensky and his firm belief that Ukraine belongs to Russia with a leader he liked, while Kyiv was responsible for the 2016 interferences in US elections (and not Russia as it will be proved later), which will also ultimately lead to Trump’s first impeachment that will be voted down by all GOP Senators but an ever-righteous Mitt Romney. Sanger describes a chaotic four-year term peppered with never-seen-before presidential behavioral features, even if many Americans feel today that it was a sound economic period compared with that of the current Biden term—even if macro-economic data would suggest otherwise.  Sanger provides many anecdotes regarding the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol (including Russian and Chinese comments on the clear weaknesses of American “democracy”) and the unusual lack of institutional willingness on the part of the Trump team to operate a smooth transition with the incoming Biden team (Trump would not even be present at Biden’s inauguration in a locked-down DC, like Andrew Johnson had done for Ulysses Grant 150 years earlier in post-civil war traumatic times). In January 2021 as America was leaving the “differentiated” Trump era and style, the focus was not yet on the hardening of its Southern borders or a return of a new and hotter, multiple, Cold War.                         

While Trump mainly focused on trade short of a new overall strategy with China, the new Biden team, notably with Jake Sullivan (I find excellent), realized quickly that the policy of engagement with Beijing had failed as getting closer to and integrating them in a Western, if not American, rules-based international order would never make them change their political system, economy and foreign policy—even if they had played a tactical game for years as they were getting stronger. Old style engagement with China was de facto over. While not old style “containment”, US policy toward China would then be focused on a “state of clear-eyed coexistence on terms favorable to US interests and values”.  Areas of conflict became clearer, such as technology (we saw recently with TikTok), territorial ambitions, influence campaigns from Latin America to Europe, and naturally Taiwan—but also Hong Kong in a departure from the times of Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. This reassessment would lead to a new US focus on Asia and strengthening alliances, at times when Europe was no longer the main center of interest, even if Russia was considered always potentially hostile by Trump’s team, if not the man himself.

This drive was combined with a refocus on the American economy and ensuring China was cut off from US technology sources while spying was better checked across American society. The era of full US-Chinese globalization, once described as the “flat world” in terms of manufacturing, was also largely reduced, if not totally over, in what Xi saw as “containment, encirclement and suppression” even if still officially open to working with US firms as seen with the much-heralded visit of US business leaders in Beijing in late April. While the relationship was changing, the Chinese leadership, via its new ambassador to the US in 2021, made sure to stress in an odd way that it was still a “whole-process democracy,” to answer Biden’s reference to authoritarianism, stressing the interdependency with the West, and that it would never lose a cold war made against it—reflecting Beijing’s self-assurance and making Mao proud in his grave.    

As Biden succeeded Trump in the chaotic period we know and even with hopes rising high for better times, a major ransomware attack, targeting the Colonial Pipeline infrastructure and American car drivers, took place in May 2021. While it turned out that the culprit was Russian-based DarkSide and not Russia itself, the US took the right view that Putin was harboring ransomware gangs that were clearly tolerated (and soon encouraged) to act against Western interests. While the Obama administration did not want to trigger clashes over such events, hoping for the best in keeping mending relations, and Trump liked Putin while being focused on Chinese trade, the US under Biden would decide to confront the Kremlin, also gradually feeling that a return to an old imperialistic Russia was on the cards. The Biden team saw a Russia in decline that could take bold steps to reassert itself in the concert of key nations to which it felt it belonged.                      

Another key feature of the book involves the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan—likely one of the most tragic and worst US foreign policy moves and Biden’s top foreign policy black mark, negating the promises made to women and girls that the school-forbidding Taliban theocracy would never come back. Most, if not all, key Defense and State officials were against a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan, while Biden wanted to stop an admittedly 20-year costly experiment as America faced other strategic and geopolitical challenges. Sanger devotes a full chapter, full of details, to the unfolding tragedy and what could be seen as the betrayal of those Afghans, many of them left behind, who had assisted America in changing their unstable and corrupt country into a democracy. While the roots of the withdrawal are to be found in the original agreement between Trump and the Taliban (the “departure” being a rare point of agreement between the two Presidents), the actual exit and abandonment of local partners who had worked with US forces was horrific (even if 123,000, mostly Americans, were chaotically evacuated from Kabul Airport in 18 days, showing the unexpected pressure due to the unforeseen quick return of the Taliban). This dark episode gave both China and Russia a perfectly good case to stress America’s ineptitude in foreign affairs, this likely leading to more aggressive stances regarding Taiwan and as we would see shortly, Ukraine. If anything, and while America did not want this end result, it showed it could not be efficiently in control of some of its key strategic and tactical decisions at the time giving rivals and enemies the worst kind of advertising possible as to why America was unreliable as an ally.

As the Afghan withdrawal came to a tragic end, US intelligence services were gathering increasing evidence that an invasion of Ukraine was likely to take place. Sanger depicts the ways that agencies were communicating their findings to the White House and were making an increasingly clear case, as of September 2021, in spite of various mild and broad denials from Moscow. An interesting feature was the debate about making some evidence public and breaking the mantra of intelligence agencies which should only work for the President and his senior team. Interestingly, many reporters including Sanger, some of whom close to the likes of CIA head, Bill Burns, were very cautious about this approach, fully remembering the case made public by the George W. Bush administration regarding the roots of the Iraq war in 2003. The case for the invasion of Ukraine had been made clear as of July 2021 (as Washington was quite busy in Kabul) by Putin himself in his seven-thousands word manifesto “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” even if many were not sure what this “roadmap” meant at the time.

Another sign was the “partnership without limits” stated by both Putin and Xi during the summer 2021 Beijing Olympics that seemed to point to new times when old rivalries and even limited conflicts would disappear with a new focus against the West. Based on this key episode, that with hindsight made sense after February 2022, Sanger provides a very detailed account of the challenging relationship between Beijing and Moscow in the years since Stalin and Mao, and the gradual change in the senior and junior partnership roles we could see today (on a light note, many later felt that Xi was very keen on avoiding any invasion during the Beijing Olympics, even if Putin must have remained unclear as to what was an obvious move all intelligence agencies were expecting). 

Most of the last third of the book deals, unsurprisingly, with the war in Ukraine. Many interesting points are made, some new for many people. The US had sent four dozen cybersecurity specialists to counter pre-invasion hacking moves from the Russians— showing that the US knew what was coming. While Zelensky had not initially impressed many at home or globally as a born leader, the invasion and his own tenacity in the best role of his career changed minds very quickly, especially as he was determined to stay in Kyiv and lead the fight as the invasion targeted the capital city. The Russians were surprised by the fighting abilities of the Ukrainians in many ways and areas, notably when they could not easily take the Hostomel airport, twenty miles away from Kyiv, which they wanted to use for their early frontline troops, equipment and military hardware. The Russian military showed too-heavily a top-down military machine and command, symptomatic of autocracies, that prevented quick decisions on the battlefield and a weakness in “combined arms operations,” clear facts that nullified all the investments Putin had overseen in securing state-of-the-art military hardware for its forces over recent years.

The unnecessary brutality with which Russia prosecuted the war, with the civilian killings, looting, rapes, missile strikes on apartment buildings and shelters, as well as the deportation of children, strengthened Ukraine’s resolve, giving it a sense of previously unheard-of unity. The Wagner Group and its tested mercenaries, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, seemed to be the only effective force on the ground— and unsurprisingly the most brutal (on a lighter note and back in 2002 Sanger had seen Prigozhin in another role serving dinner to Putin and Bush on the Neva in what were then new times).  One clear win for Russia was the early hacking of all the Ukrainian telecommunication satellites system known as Viasat, which only Elon Musk and his Starlink system helped restore, initially free of charge. It is clear that the Russian leadership mismanaged its invasion in sheer and basic military terms to the point they would have received an “F” in any war college. Russian forces were deployed too thinly along five major lines of conflict, without supply lines to back the troops, showing that no major combat operation had been envisaged, hoping for a bloodless takeover, believing that most Ukrainians were on their side, thus only requiring a decapitation strike on the Kyiv leadership and installing a local pro-Russian politician (Yevgeniy Murayev) as President.

The invasion, akin to an intelligence or police operation backed by troops that were not supposed to really fight, reflected the Kremlin’s lack of communication with its own military that had not been privy to any real details of the move against Ukraine. However, as size matters, the Russian forces felt they were making progress (clearly not wanting to admit failure), even if slow, in their invasion plans, hoping that the West would keep uninvolved (not a bad assessment in terms of “direct” reaction as we would see) as it had largely done since Crimea in 2014. One of the key lessons learnt by the West was the military ineptitude of the command and control of the Russian forces in spite of their advanced equipment—a frequent feature of autocratic regimes favoring obedience first—leading to huge losses on the battlefield, this even if a motivated Ukraine (trained by NATO since Crimea) could not likely on its own reverse the course of the war. The poor dynamics of the Ukraine invasion also reminded the world why Russian forces experienced so many losses during the course of history as vividly seen in WW2. It is, of course, hard to believe that Putin and his entourage felt that the operation, which should have taken less than a week, was successful in any way.  One wonders about the true feelings about this failed war in the Kremlin two years and four months later. Was it worth it?      

As Sanger stresses, the key aim of Biden was to support Ukraine while stopping short of direct involvement, an approach shared among European partners, even if the stakes were more vivid for them given the geography at stake. Biden apparently grew quite concerned about some leaks that the sinking of the top battleship Moskva in the Black Sea (today hardly a Russian sea) was enabled thanks to US intelligence and technical support, a step drawing the US closer to a state of war with Russia. It was clear that the Biden team spent much time in 2022 between finding a way to support Ukraine while not taunting Putin and get into an undesirable WW3. The nuclear power features of the invasion linked to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant seized by Russian forces, and the always-possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially if in challenging battlefield posture, added critical features to the way the US and European allies could react, the latter making many wondering how Russia was left with such an arsenal after losing the Cold War. The discussions between Zelensky and the White House over economic and weapons support, the latter that would keep changing gradually to meet Kyiv’s needs, were at times tough and challenging, while domestic politics and a GOP-controlled and Trump-friendly House of Representatives would not help with timing, as seen recently for many months. Sanger also gives a thorough account of the various sanctions hitting the core Putin team, the key oligarchs and the Russian banks that became deprived of access to SWIFT (combined with decisions to end Nord Stream 2 and gradually reduce European oil and gas purchases) while Russia found ways to go around some of them, at times with the assistance of China and other countries like India that needed cheaper oil access, while playing both camps, depending on the matter at hand.     

Sanger’s detailed opus is a work in transition, very much reflecting the world we know. Globalization, and even productive collaboration, as we knew them post-Cold War, seem to be gradually over, with a return to more self-reliance and control of supply chains if not isolationism (one of Trump’s recent ideas—to be checked for accuracy—would be to focus on tariffs while suppressing income tax, showing a combination of new trends linked to cheap populist vote-grabbing). The return of major wars in the heart of Europe and the Middle-East (leading the latter to a resurgence, even if unplanned, of antisemitism), rising tensions in Asia, the prevalence of personal ambitions over rationality (Brexit and then its mismanagement, Netanyahu’s post-dreadful October 7 self-serving horrific drive, Putin’s irrational imperial pursuit, Xi’s unclear master plan), the return of nationalism and populism with its various costly far-left and far-right flavors, added to the gullibility of voters still enjoying democracy, provide us with a dangerous multipolar chessboard at all levels, making it hard to believe in a happy future.  As for the US standpoint, Sanger stresses the new existence of Russia and China—also a possible nuclear power axis in a potentially new and dual Cold War scenario—assisted by Iran and North Korea, all working together on often joint tactical issues putting the West in a dangerous position. All at a time when the nature of US leadership is contested from within with the likes of Republican leader (if not hijacker) Trump and his positions regarding Nato or vote-grabbing protectionism from another age—this leading to a potential implosion of the alliance and the weakening risk of a Russia-threatened Europe that needs to (and will) invest more in defense. As Sanger points out, rejection of US interventionism, which was tainted since Vietnam but also Afghanistan and Iraq, due to its huge costs, mismanagement and ultimate results, is also shared by many Democrats, which explains Obama’s reluctance to “lead” forcefully as the US could have in Syria, but also during the invasion of Crimea in his second term.  One of Sanger’s last chapters is focused on the digital aspects of warfare, a key feature of the battleground in line with all the developments we know in the technological fields like AI. And obviously October 7 and its ensuing developments in Gaza are treated as part of the new geopolitical world we are into and like in Ukraine, seem to have no end in sight.                 

As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (incidentally my high school neighbor in Paris during our teens in the 1970s) said: “This is not the world we wanted, or were trying to shape, after the Cold War.” While US-focused, Blinken’s statement should resonate with all of us in the West, including of course in Europe, especially today with a major war on our doorstep. Sanger’s book is very long and detailed but worth reading, given its well-balanced approach, and as its author personally dealt with the key protagonists on all sides since the Reagan times. It also provides us with links between past and present and reminds us of key events that we often forgot, and which unfolded always too fast in our complex and challenging world.

Warmest regards,

Serge            

4-5-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

I wanted to share with you some thoughts on “Moscow X”, the second spy novel (after “Damascus Station”) from David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst that many see as the new John Le Carré. It is clear that his background made McCloskey a very credible writer in a genre that we all thought we knew, but where he lends current credibility as times have also evolved. Today’s short Book Note stresses the novel’s key features and those of its author that have led to so many plaudits across the range of not just well-known novelists and current affairs journalists, but also retired intelligence professionals. While I will emphasize its key features, I will also let you discover and fully enjoy the book. 

“Moscow X”, the name of a new Langley-based CIA entity focused on Russia and its key decision-makers, is about an operation to “compromise” one of the private bankers to Vladimir Putin and create upheaval at the top of the Kremlin. It is rather global in its set-up and deals in great details on what we can assume are current operational and structural features of intelligence agencies both in the US and Russia. It also describes the direct and blurred link between former and current intelligence leaders in Russia with massive wealth. Putin, known to be a multi-billionaire (as widely reported by the late Alexei Navalny) was of course a former KGB officer, while the Deputy President and Chairman of the Executive Board of VTB, one of the leading state-owned Russian banks, is none other than the son of Aleksandr Bortnikov, the head of the FSB since 2008.   

The similarity to John Le Carré is clear when reading the description of how CIA (and not “the CIA” in casual insider talk) works internally in a way that reminds some of us of “Smiley’s People” or “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” which we also saw on screens small and big with Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman. Some of us discover that intelligence officers as such need not to be citizens of their country’s agencies or even “official” – as in the case of Max, a Mexican horse trader – or Hortensia – a top London corporate lawyer – both working with and for CIA. In a similar tone, Anna, a Russian banker, also would appear to work for the SVR, the foreign Russian intelligence agency, conveniently mixing professional role and at times family business. All three are NOCs or agents with non-official covers who actually operate in covert roles for their intelligence platforms.

The style is a bit different from traditional spy novels, with many words and sayings of our times, often “hard ones”, while the writing is very descriptive and indeed detailed as was John Le Carré in his novels (on a personal note, I ran into him as David Cornwell, our neighbor and nearby pub goer in Hampstead in 1993. It was fun as he enjoyed being recognized but kept a naturally low profile as George Smiley would). It can make for an arduous read at times, as one needs to focus, also as the interactions between the main characters are plenty – even if at times unexpected. One could find the story of a fight between two wealthy Russians, both having worked in top roles at the old KGB and then FSB, a bit unexpected, while the various developments putting together unusual adversaries are very entertaining, again in the detailed background that McCloskey puts in place.  One feature which is strong (and probably real) is how tiny and interconnected the Russian elite is across societal segments with a direct link to Putin and often his native “Piter” (Saint Petersburg).

Money linked to “obedience first” seems to be everywhere in all of Russia’s power structure, which would not be a surprise. And that kleptocracy is often helped by the belief that the individuals concerned simply convince themselves that they “hold” the money for Russia itself in a quasi-patriotic mission. A good and known example in real life may be Igor Sechin, who had no experience of the oil industry but was very close to Putin and is today the long-serving CEO, President and Chairman of Rosneft, a leading Russian oil producer. “Moscow X” shows an FSB-flavored Moscow society and its “cameras everywhere” controlling people actually willing to be controlled as a small price to live very well. Another key feature is the description of intelligence operations and their minute preparations, indeed in contemporary George Smiley ways (including being able to be ready to adjust to the Russian elite’s drinking habits whatever their hidden rationale for them at times). One also discovers the challenging TOTT process or Tier One Target Tradecraft that new CIA agents need to go through in Northern Virginia in order to be operationally ready and also fully confirmed as CIA.

Without revealing much, the book’s main story, while being focused on compromising a key Putin private banker, starts when a senior FSB-flavored Russian, also in the Kremlin, seizes gold bars from a former colleague and schoolmate, also very wealthy now as a top horse farmer, who had married his ex-wife. It is an unusual start for a spy thriller, showing unexpected tensions within the Russian elite. Anna, the daughter of the “victim” is working at Bank Rossiya, a well-known Russian bank but is also an SVR NOC intelligence operative and will do her best to get daddy’s money back. In doing so she approaches a London law firm reputed for dealing with “Russian money” even in our times of sanctions as the story is taking place today. (Let us not forget, with all due respect to many English friends, that London or indeed Mayfair was also known in some parts as “Londongrad”, as seen in an old Book Note “Rich Russians”, and the home to many financial and legal advisers for which morality may not be a key driver). Anna is, of course, aware that the London law firm is dealing with laundering the gold for “Goose”, one of the top Kremlin insiders, and her father’s former FSB rival and now enemy.

What she does not know is that lawyer Hortensia (she only goes by Sia – beware as she is rather jumpy on that one) is also CIA NOC, while being with Afrikaans roots and a former member of a Palo alto tech start-up close to Langley. Sia will team up with Max, a third generation CIA operative from Mexico who is also officially managing his horse-trading platform in San Cristobal. They will get Anna and her husband Vadim, who is the son of the former leader of Bank Rossiya, to join them in Mexico for a horse-buying visit as a prelude to compromising the latter, indeed one of Putin’s private bankers. All while Anna, not initially realizing the true nature of Sia, will be trying to recruit her for the SVR while she is looking for her to recoup her horse farming ex-FSB father’s gold.

Following San Cristobal, Sia and Max will then go together to Russia under commercial horse-trading cover to fulfill their mission, not knowing but “guessing” about Anna’s true role – it is Russia after all – while the latter not knowing theirs at that point. The dual roles of the main characters are funny and almost unrealistic but makes for a great and evolving complex plot that one needs to focus on in order to keep track of the compelling story.

As a parting gift, and perhaps an inducement to read this book, I will give you Anna’s take on the Russian ruler, also knowing she followed her then surprised father in his KGB and then FSB footsteps. “She’d come to think of Putin as many things all at once. An all-powerful Tsar and the cheerless manager of an unruly system larger than himself. A despot and an issuer of vague, sometimes ignored guidance. A new public idol and a private source of jokes and snickers. He was former KGB Second Directorate, after all (note: not First Directorate, the KGB elite). A thug (note: in his St Petersburg youth, for sure), not an artist like the foreign intelligence men around Papa. Like the rest of our country, she thought, he is proud and insecure, aggressive and pitiable, strong and weak. He was everything, he was nothing, but sometimes you had to give a damn about him as he was the center of the Russian world. The khozyain. Master. Without him the world did not spin. His existence was neither good nor bad. It just was.”  

Finally, and as some of us struggle to understand Russia’s lack of what we take for rationality, failing to realize that it was never a democracy, Anna’s words are quite telling: “I am a patriot. I do not think you truly know this. Maybe as Americans you are incapable of understanding. I do not care that Putin rules our country. The Russian system has always been this way. One person at the top, everyone taking what they can. The activists and protesters mean nothing to me. I am a patriot”. Besides the great storytelling and the minute display of contemporary espionage craft, “Moscow X” tells the reader a lot about what Russia is today – simply a natural continuation of its never-changing history.  I will now let you enjoy the read without uncovering the whole espionage tale and its many developments.           

Warmest regards

Serge

1-4-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

I wanted to share with you in this rather long (but much needed) piece the last book by Jim Sciutto, whom some of you may know as CNN’s chief national security analyst, and anchor of CNN Newsroom (I see some eyes raising in the deep right side of the room). Sciutto is an interesting man with a diplomatic background, having been posted at the US Embassy in Beijing, before joining the news network in 2013, from where he has reported from 50 countries and many conflict areas in the world. He has written many books focused on geopolitics and security matters, such as “The Shadow War” (previously reviewed on this blog) dealing with the vast array of asymmetrical challenges posed by Russia and China over the last twenty years. “The Return of Great Powers” (with a telling if not worrying sub-heading “Russia, China and the Next World War”) is about the new world we have known following the thirty years or so of “peace through trade” and globalization, with less attention to a clash of the great powers as there was only one: the US. As often mentioned in previous posts, the world game has been changed by the steady rise of China, even with its challenges, and Russia’s existential fight for relevance, using old-fashioned (if not forgotten) warfare in Europe, with other world players acting along opportunistically with their own interests at play.

One of the differentiating features of Sciutto’s book, that covers topics that became well known, is that he was often not only on the ground, but also dealing directly with key political, diplomatic, military and intelligence officials providing him with their views of unfolding events – from CIA director Bill Burns to President Zelensky and his key staff. Other useful contributors were his many talented CNN colleagues in the thick of it in all theaters covered by the book, combined with his ability to connect the dots between this war and broader world issues and players. Sciutto’s book is different in that he stresses the return not only of the great powers but also of a 1939 (I would even say Munich 1938 at times in parts of the West) or pre-world war moment, also one where former Cold War guardrails and communication between major actors is no longer effective, thus potentially leading to global chaos. As if to confirm the disturbing feeling, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressly warned that Europe was in a “pre-war era” in late March. In times when small wars in exotic places may no longer be the norm (October 7 and Gaza being seen as contradictions even if they are also linked to great power conflict through their local allies or surrogates), the book focuses on the new development of the forgotten return of history with direct great power war. In this context, Sciutto covers how Russia plans to bring the international order down while China is aiming at creating an entirely new one. As a student of history (like many military leaders) General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, stresses that the new era we are witnessing often goes back to the old confrontation between a revisionist and a status quo power which usually ends up in armed conflict (not something the populations of the West in particular would like to hear today).   

Sciutto stresses that our new world is now marked by actual and potential great power conflict areas ranging from the obvious Ukraine and Taiwan but also extending to Russian aspirations in the Baltics (a key driver for the West to stop Russia in Ukraine and not allowing an unhinged Putin to go “further”) as well as China’s land claims in the South China Sea. Other theaters include North Korea’s incessant missile threats to its Southern neighbor and US bases in Asia, the East China Sea with Russia and China conducting joint-exercises, or the often-visited and tested Alaskan coasts by Chinese balloons and the once-unexpected Arctic.

The change in our world happened with both Ukraine and Taiwan being the new focus of the world order we knew and most in the West liked from the early 1990s. Sciutto’s book starts unsurprisingly with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a topic now well covered over the last two years, but with a personal angle as he was in Kyiv for CNN when it all started in late February 2022. US and British intelligence services had gathered evidence of a clear massing of Russian troops near the Ukraine borders with Russia since November 2021, while Putin kept stressing they were for defensive purposes as NATO and Ukraine were threatening the motherland – all while having worked hard academically at creating a historical scenario of imperial rebirth for the invasion to come. There was a refusal to see the obvious until the last minute in many Western capitals – apparently not frontline Helsinki that was used to a well-perceived dangerous neighbor – as if there was too much desire for the world order they knew to remain. While many Western capitals worked hard at maintaining what they saw as a productive dialogue with Putin, such as Paris for a while, Foreign Secretary Lavrov visiting Liz Truss kept stressing only a few days before the invasion that troop movements inside Russia were nothing like thousands of British forces in the Baltics at Russia’s doors.  On December 17, 2021 Putin had made clear that Russia wanted the withdrawal of NATO forces from territories of members having joined as of 1997, no new members like Finland and of course never Ukraine.  Then while Western intelligence was proven right they also failed to predict the actual resistance of Ukraine and failure of Russia to seize Kyiv in 72 hours, which turned out to be almost a bigger surprise than the invasion itself.

The war in Ukraine marked the imagined and often controversial “end of history” as stated by Francis Fukuyama post-Cold War which meant that the age of large armed forces and great power conflict was behind us. The new era of globalization became marked by smaller conflicts, a downsize of the past militaries and their budgets as well as supply chains and a new focus on long and often challenging counter-insurgencies like in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the striking points of the book stressed by US Admiral James Stavridis, that evaded many, was that the Ukraine war also quickly became a hybrid proxy war with one great power fully engaged with troops and firepower and the other not with troops but with money and ammunition (one could add before the Mike Johnson-hijacked House of Representatives went on vacation when a bill was needed, even if Europe was still there for Kyiv notwithstanding its challenging Hungarian issues). Ukraine provided a wake-up call to a new era at multiple warfare levels. It is clear that ammunition, even if not troops on the ground, were a key factor for Ukrainian prowess on the battlefield like with US  

High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which gave them a clear advantage on the battlefield. Ammunition also became a key issue, as there was a struggle for the West to produce enough to meet both Ukraine’s needs and their own going forward (a US assessment of needed artillery rounds on the battlefield was a need to increase production by 500% as Ukraine was firing in two or three days what the US then produced in one month).                       

While the world would see Ukraine invaded by Russia, the battlefield showed rather quickly Ukrainian forces regaining territory and being on the offensive to recapture lost territory while Russian forces suffered terrible losses, showed poor command, and were actually on the defensive to retain invaded grounds. The first Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2022 showed quick results while the second one in the summer of 2023 was painfully slow as Russia had built up its defenses, learned from mistakes even if losses continued to be staggering. However, a striking point was the adaptability of Ukrainian forces, due also to the training of their officers and key NCOs by NATO since 2014, this in stark comparison with the Stalinian-inherited very top-down, controlling decision-making, leading to little or no initiative, itself reserved to the highest ranks (NCOs were indeed the missing link in the Russian military and some would say the Chinese military when thinking about a potential invasion of Taiwan). Russian forces are not well-trained and can only win by massive firepower often aimed (if the word was right) at both military and civilian targets leading to scorched-earth type campaigns like in eastern Ukraine, also at the price of heavy losses as lives do not matter to their high command as seen in the last two world wars and to some smaller extent Afghanistan. As Ukraine recovered some territory like at Kherson, and did not lose as was expected, the main question became as Sciutto stresses “could it win?” At the same time and beyond the official messaging, Russia can see its inability to conduct efficient conventional warfare given its poor readiness which might explain (if it were ever possible) Putin’s frequent reminder of Russia’s nuclear capabilities, making them “no longer unthinkable” a warfare option that one of Sciutto’s chapter deals with in detail.         

The Ukraine invasion solidified the dividing line of what is a new Iron Curtain between the West and Russia, while Putin expected a weak and disunited West to not care about Russia going West, all the more so as it did not much react to the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine invasion of 2014 even if carried out initially by “little green men” as if from outer space. The Western allies’ rush to provide Kyiv with military equipment assistance like HIMARS and Storm Shadow cruise missiles helped stop the Russian “blitzkrieg”, however incompetent Russian conventional warfare was. Russia’s invasion strengthened NATO to an unexpected point with Sweden and Finland, two historical neutral countries bent on dialogue with Russia, eventually joining the Alliance after dealing with challenging Turkish and Hungarian members. NATO, born in 1949 to stop Soviet expansion plans in Europe, grew to 32 members, including 14 from the former Soviet Warsaw Pact, within two years of the invasion, this stressing Russia’s miscalculations in addition to their failed military achievements.

Another consequence of Russia’s invasion was a redefinition of the West’s posture alongside Europe, all the more so as Russian and China were seen to get closer in relation to dealing with the West via a “No Limits Relationship”, thereby also creating global challenges for NATO in spite of its initial focus on Europe. Russia and China share a common adversary, if not de facto formal enemy for the latter, in spite of being very different in their overall profile. China also has a GDP six to ten times that of Russia, while Moscow has 20 times the nuclear weapons China does (and the number one world rank in that category) – showing the odd and historically scary profile of Russia.  Both Putin and Xi share a restoration mission to correct the historical wrongs imposed on their nations by the West (Putin indeed spent much time and academic resources focusing on rewriting history to justify his invasion of Ukraine, which he sees as an integral part of Russia). Not since Mao and Stalin have both countries been in such lockstep on the creation of a new global order, stopping the end of the rules serving the “golden billion”, and involving a confrontation, if not war, with the West, this even if China is the more rational of the two in its actual definition and implementation of the latter. Putin would stress that this new system is not directed against “third countries” (Ukraine not being really one to start with) and that China (he needs at any levels) faces a threat from the US and its allies in Asia as much as Russia is threatened by NATO (the preemptive driver to attack first in Ukraine).                   

Sciutto feels that the extensive damage to Russia’s ground forces will compel Putin to rely upon unconventional weaponry such as cyber, space and even tactical nuclear capabilities – hence his often stark and shocking statements. Similarly, Russia, while turning into a war economy that will sustain for some time the appearance of vigor (at 7% of GDP today), will need military equipment support from its allies. While China has been so far reluctant to provide lethal weapons to Moscow, in spite of the no limits relationship asserted just pre-invasion, the likes of Iran and North Korea will assist Russia, drones being an example for the former, and this against more sophisticated weaponry they also need. Washington aptly stressed the “red line” that Chinese military support would cross with some success (even if Beijing would unlikely take that stance), many remembering a similar red line that was crossed by Damascus and forgotten by the Obama administration about the use of chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war. As Sciutto stressed, if China could not help Russia militarily, one of the ways to benefit would be to prolong the war in Europe as long as possible, also to weaken the West by draining financial resources and military stockpiles, this also to foment gradual disunity and create a key distraction as Xi gears its military and people for war over Taiwan, even if still unlikely today. It would also happen that China might be the one to need military equipment support, especially in the field of submarine technology where Moscow is a leading player, even if not directly useful in terms of its invasion of Ukraine.           

NATO is not simply about Europe in the reshaping of the world order. One of the key side developments of the war in Ukraine was for Japan and Australia to take steps to strengthen their ties with the West. Canberra joined the AUKUS agreement with the US and the UK, even if creating an awkward snub of France with whom they had signed a contract to buy diesel submarines. The UK, Japan and Italy got together to work on a next generation of fighter jets, while Japan and the UK signed an historic defense agreement in January 2023. The US, Japan and South Korea signed new trilateral partnership at Camp David in August 2023, also having a positive impact on the relationship between the two Asian countries which has been challenging since World War II. Key Asian and Australasian countries clearly stated that the invasion of Ukraine also mattered to them in terms of their own security as making the world less stable and as a result strengthening the Western camp beyond the unexpected expansion of NATO.  The Ukraine war and its impact, combined with concerns about China, led the US and Japan to sign a new security pact 64 years after the previous one to upgrade their arrangements and face the global threats presented by the new multipolar world order.   

Going into more active mode, Sciutto takes part in a Baltic Sea naval mission of the High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF in NATO-speak) where we deal with a German flagship Commander named Marx and Spanish and Portuguese ships in a first mission together that shows what NATO is also all about. NATO’s Maritime Command today is led by a Briton, his Deputy being Italian with key officers from Spain, Germany, Portugal, Canada, Turkey and Greece. We see how Russian fighter jets shadowing the ships threaten their NATO counterparts in close encounters beyond the accepted norm, not as rogue pilots but as merely reflecting the approval of their higher-ups to create a hostile environment. Sciutto makes the point that, while the Russian ground forces have suffered devastating losses in personnel, equipment, and pride, their Air Force and Navy have remained largely untouched barring a few key losses of surface ships like the flagship Moksva in the Black Sea from drones expertly managed by Ukrainian forces. We learn that Russian submarines are viewed as top quality by NATO, especially in terms of non-detection, leading US naval forces to urgently upgrade their own fleet in a more competitive and dangerous environment. We also learn that civilian infrastructure, often a Russian target, led NATO to create a division to protect these naval assets like undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Sciutto tells us about a conversation with Marx about the famed diplomatic, economic and energy engagement policy of Germany with Moscow personified by Angela Merkel, soberly stating that the desired outcome was right – a point I also fully agree with, having been a proponent of peace though trade as a way to ensure that the likes of Russia had more to gain by being integrated into the world system until irrationality and wild restoration desires prevailed. It is worth noting that Germany put aside its Word War II guilt (found by some to be eminently practical) and made a rapid reassessment of the need for military spending in the months following the Ukraine invasion – even if implementation takes time (but hopefully as the third economy in the world today it will show results) while having been the largest, by far, European financial supporter of Ukraine behind the US to date. As a last point of his maritime exchange, Sciutto noted a worrying point about the German youth following a YouGov opinion poll reported by Die Zeit: Only 11% of  them would be ready to defend their country while only one in twenty would volunteer to do so and nearly 25% would flee to avoid service – a sign of our peaceful times post-Cold War and their associated features especially for people living in a very enjoyable (and perhaps declining) West.  It is fair to stress that when Macron, having made a total u-turn in dealing with Russia, mentioned the possibilities of French troops being eventually sent to Ukraine, only 21% approved in a poll conducted after his statement.   

Arriving in Tallinn, the capital of the small Baltic country of Estonia, where the VTJF ended its mission, on the very front lines of a potential aggressor and revanchist power, Sciutto covers more interesting features at play. Estonia and the Baltic states (all NATO members) and Moldova dealing with a pro-Russian Transnistria (even if calmer, as to its Russian roots judging from the recent low participation in the Russian presidential “election”) are obvious potential next steps for Moscow post-Ukraine, all the more so if the latter was to fall under Russian control. Sciutto engages with Kaja Kallas, the new Estonian Prime Minister and flamboyant leader going through the challenging history of her small country and why it  “may be next” for Russia that considers it part of its “empire” or sphere of influence, something many NATO allies still do not understand, all the more as “the Western world survived very well without us for fifty years” (Tallinn is about 200 miles from St Petersburg while – news to many – Helsinki is only 50 miles away). Estonia is a tricky land, as Tallinn’s population of five hundred thousand is 40% ethnic Russian, like Eastern Estonia, making “street support” to visiting NATO units, not always obvious even if a clear majority backs the alliance. One of the key successes of Kallas following the NATO Summit in Madrid of June 2022 was to make sure NATO realizes that while its esteemed members should really stick to the 2% of GDP committed to defense – she was elected on a program of tax increase targeted at enhancing Estonian defense ­– it should also not rescue Estonia “within 180 days” as previously planned but within days if not hours if it were invaded, hence the following frequent VTJF visits which Sciutto was part of.    

Sciutto’s book covers many related topics, like the sensitive one of Taiwan as a potential or actual target of Chinese expansionism, with the two old red lines being challenged: “no invasion” for the US and “no independence” for China and what the Ukraine war taught Taipei. The two chapters about Taiwan show the potential dual negative scenario that could be followed by Xi – him being the key and only decider for China today – between a gradual Hong Kong-like economic asphyxiation leading to surrender, or a more challenging invasion mirroring the Russian scenario for Ukraine (US war games still showing a crippled but independent Taiwan given the perceived Russian “features” of Chinese forces). The topic of Taiwan deals with many interesting features about its key players and issues. Xi, a one-man state today if any, is seen as far more ambitious and wanting fewer restraints than his predecessors, learning about the Ukraine invasion as Taiwan does, while being like a Putin, though one far more pragmatic and realizing that failing to conquer Taiwan, should he go forward with such a dangerous plan, would be his personal failure, so likely too much to risk.  Sciutto’s take on Taiwan is also interesting as while President Biden boldly stated many times the US would intervene militarily in the case of an invasion, breaking the usual official American stance of what amounted to “supporting diplomatic neutrality” or as it is known “strategic ambiguity”, the Taiwanese leadership still prefers to be ready to defend itself rather than relying on needed but still uncertain US support, given its costs, even if the population of Taipei often behaves as if no invasion would ever occur, based on the last 70 years of tensions that led to no actual conflict. Other chapters show us the rising potential for nuclear confrontations following Putin’s direct statements reflecting Russia’s obvious conventional challenges with what is also becoming a multifront global power war in terms of means – cyber, AI and sheer disinformation – and geographies – the Arctic or “near space” (via balloons, a new tool seen in early 2023 over the US) or the sheer weaponization of space with rockets. In another chapter, an unstable and surprisingly (to many of his former White House staff) often Hitler-admiring Trump, who likes autocrats as they can do what they want unlike him when President, is seen as “a wild card” in the unfolding global game. Sciutto discusses the key impact of Trump’s reelection in 2024 with a possible withdrawal from NATO on the back of past friendly relations with Putin, and an election-driven isolationism of another age to appease his admiring voter or cult base. Paths to peace that still exist are then explored by Sciutto on the back of what history taught us, like the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, without surrendering to despotism in Ukraine and globally. As a conclusion Sciutto stresses the long nature of the war the West is now facing as the old world is vanishing and a new one gradually emerges with its new chessboard, challenges and clear priorities. One of the key paths proposed to keeping the peace is “international rules and agreements plus (US and Western) power” to ensure practical world stability among great powers. In this respect, even if a land for peace agreement could eventually be envisaged to stop the war of invasion, Ukraine cannot be lost for the sake of its sovereignty but also for the survival of the international order so as to avoid opening a Pandora’s box of domino theory for the twenty-first century.                                 

On a personal note, and while understanding the axis Moscow wants with China and which Beijing has supported at times in some measured ways, I feel that the latter is not as confrontational as the former and today Xi is not Putin. China, while not being a Western democracy (a fact rooted in history we need to accept productively), faces some key demographic and economic challenges and despite making noises of an historic nature about Taiwan and related matters, still relies upon globalization, notwithstanding peace through trade no longer being the once post-Cold War key driver of international relations. Even if Xi would want to fulfill his historic reunification with Taiwan under his third term in office, he first needs to deliver economic prosperity to his people, all the more so if the invasion would appear too risky. Globalization is also shown in the China-Taiwan trade with China representing 40% of the 21^st world economy’s trade besides 70 years of strong sovereignty issues linked to the creation of both countries. Even if new security agreements between the West and its Asian allies are understandable given our changing times, there is nothing to gain from severing all trade and investment ties with China as if a dangerous decoupling was wanted (surely by Moscow), this even if the West should pay attention to geopolitical matters linked to trading with Beijing including undue influence in its domestic affairs – hence the “de-risking” moves taken by the US in areas deemed important to its security interests (as seen with state-backed hackers like APT31, new EV imports or in the tech sector with actually unpopular TikTok regulations). There is nothing to gain from antagonizing Beijing as long as it behaves rationally about matters like Taiwan so it does not get closer to Russia in unacceptable ways. In spite of an increased fight for influence with the West and its allies, also across Asia-Pac, or sensitive trade issues with both the US and EU, China may realize that it can gain much more by striking a productive dialogue with the West in a mutual win-win mode rather than following a Russia that may go down a more erratic and lost path during and following the war in Ukraine. Xi’s recent welcome to Beijing of top US business leaders in late March seems to show his preferred focus for sensible expansion through trade rather than risky hostilities.  

Similarly, it is key for the West – especially at times forgetful Western Europe and especially but not only its new generations – not to fall into a Munich 1938 mode that would reflect the feeling that Russia would stop after seizing control of Ukraine so it would make sense to cease an expensive support of Kyiv today. This Munich mode, while dangerous, is also accompanied by a politicization seen in America in an election year when the support of Ukraine is part of a game for the tiny majority of the Republican House of Representatives to deny the Biden administration any major win regardless of the geopolitical stakes for the West, including America. It is clear that the West switching gears in terms of defense would mean higher taxes and/or a reduction of the Welfarist social contract, especially in Europe, which is challenging after decades of actual peace and little or no memories of the last world war, but it is key for the West to be realistic and change old habits as a matter of deterrence and potential survival. Necessary historical changes like the key one expressed by German chancellor Scholtz on defense in mid-2022 need now to migrate in their natural acceptance from chancelleries to households. As Tony Blinken stressed, Russia would not want to expand the conflict across Europe as it could likely not manage it – at least now – but it is not a reason to adopt a Chamberlain approach to the war in Ukraine hoping for rational behavior (if the word could ever apply in the case of Putin as seen with his initially odd comments targeting Kyiv following the recent ISIS terror attack in the Moscow theater). As always, the Latin motto of “Si vis pacem para bellum” and what it entails, as stressed in previous pieces, does matter now existentially for the West and especially Europe more than ever.

Warmest regards,

Serge

22-2-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

I would like to share with you a new book on warfare since 1945 by two well-known specialists of the subject. One is General David Petraeus, one of the leading American military commanders (and indeed thinkers) who was CIA Director under Obama (before sadly and to some unfairly having to resign due to an affair with his “All in” biographer). The other is Andrew Roberts, one of the leading British military historians also known for his famed “Napoléon” and “Churchill” biographies. I realize the topic is a tough one and some will think I relish writing on sad matters, but I thought it was an interesting one, all the more so as we are going into the third year of a war of invasion in Ukraine—an event which upended the relatively quiet and very productive post-Cold War globalization world we knew. “Conflict” is clearly a very dense book which a Book Note could not give the right credit for. To be fair, each chapter and its wars, that are described chronologically, would deserve a Book Note of its own—if not a whole book.     

Given the return of war in Europe, Russia is of course front and center of the authors’ considerations. Throughout history, Russia has always had a peculiar approach to using military forces, not necessarily to the benefit of its own soldiers. Eighty per cent of the soldiers who died fighting Nazi Germany did so on the Eastern front – these were Soviet forces, not including the millions of Soviet civilians who lost their lives as German forces went East in 1941. Russia registered five times more war dead in one year of the Ukraine invasion than in a decade in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Ukraine war is a regressive WW2-type war in terms of its warfare approach. Strategic leadership being key in modern warfare, the authors stress that the failure of Russia to win, all the more given its assumed military might, is a testimony to its inherent weakness. In a way, Russia’s military unwittingly showed Russian forces more appropriate for grand military parades of a North Korean style as seen in the May Day victory parades to celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany. Russian victories require masses of soldiers and casualties rather than sheer strategic brio—this perhaps reinforced by the inherent leadership weakness of commanders primarily chosen for their obedience. This assessment does not mean they will not win in Ukraine as time goes on, and the West gets tired or immersed into domestic political games and considerations—as vividly seen in the US.    

The authors make clear they are not writing a comprehensive history of all conflicts, while their focus is on the evolution of warfare through strategy, tactics and weapons and what happened on major battlefields. When looking at warfare, the 20^th century yielded more violent deaths than at any time since the beginning of the history of the world. 1945 and the end of WW2, a victory for a nascent West that would be solidified by the rising Cold War, was a time of hope. President Truman even abolished the OSS – Office of Strategic Services -, the predecessor of the soon to be CIA, in September 1945, within one month of the victory in the Pacific theater. Europe and the US were no longer at war, even if conflicts would ignite—such as with the Indian sub-continent partition that would give rise to Pakistan and the India we know, the Palestine conflict in 1948 (there to stay as we sadly see), and the Chinese civil war leading to the creation of an independent Taiwan (another sensitive spot 75 years later). Potential war on a large, if not unseen, scale then started gradually with the US and then Russia developing a nuclear arsenal, and MAD or the Mutually Assured Destruction strategy (during the Cold War, the US and Russia undertook 1,032 and 715 nuclear and then thermonuclear tests, incidentally leading to serious medical conditions in Kazakhstan where Moscow conducted 50% of its tests). One could say that MAD worked, as the two arch-enemies did not wage war directly for nearly half a century, before the Soviet Union collapsed, and globalization became the focus of all world powers.

In “The Death of the Dream of Peace” (1945-1953) the authors start with the world digesting the biggest conflict the world ever knew with the Chinese civil war, pitching Kuomintang leader Chiang vs. Communist Party leader Mao. This civil war, that few of us know well in the West, had started as the war against Japan was also waged, creating a very confusing overall battlefield. While Chiang’s Kuomintang had initially 2.5 million men under arms vs. half a million for Mao’s party, the latter leader inspired by Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” was far more agile tactically, avoiding direct confrontation when he could. Mao was also more in command than Chiang, with soldiers devoted to him and their cause, while the Kuomintang leaders were often more focused on internal politics and not caring so much about their forces. Mao was also more flexible—even using 200,000 soldiers who had fought for Japan—while being very rash in executing 150,000 soldiers opposing Communism. Chiang, supported by the West, lost a war that he should have won if only on sheer numbers, due to strategic and tactical mistakes that were not expected, and led to a retreat to Formosa and the Taiwan situation we still live with. The Chinese civil war, and its staggering six million deaths, showed that guerilla warfare carried out by much smaller Maoist forces could prevail against a Western-backed government much more powerful on paper. Then the Korean war broke out, when North Korea invaded south of the 38^th parallel Blitzkrieg style with 135,000 forces following Kim Il-sung’s decision being blessed by then Soviet Stalin (Kim Ill-sung was the father of Kim Jong Il, himself the father of Kim Jong Un, the current leader – North Korea being a family business). The Korean War, as it became known, was the first invasion of a country and, with the Chinese Civil War, the largest commitment of forces since WW2. It was also the start of surprise attacks—that we saw for decades to come with the 1967 War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Falklands War, the 1991 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, 9-11—where the attacker usually gets a much stronger response than its initial offensive however dreadful (a feature we still see to this day). It was also a war that unified most the West led by the US, (Truman having already lost China) via the UN, and so many of its members against one single enemy, which would keep its aggressive style in the Korean peninsula literally for generations. One of the amazing features of that war was the egotism of MacArthur who commanded the Western/United Nations (88% American) forces and the little-known fact that he was leading from Japan.  The Korean War that started very well, ended up in a Western retreat that was only saved by General Ridgway who replaced MacArthur after his criticism of President’s Truman limited war and his many ineptitudes as a military commander. Petraeus and Roberts give us a forgotten account of one of the leading intelligence disasters post-WW2 when the Chinese were able to move massive forces into Korea undetected, and Russian fighter pilots assisted North Korea while passing for North Koreans. This war cemented the existence of the famed 38^th parallel separating the two countries and led to what we still see today, with the aggressive moves and statements of Kim Jong Un.           

The book is too rich and dense to keep within the scope of a regular Book Note, so I will keep the great contents to be discovered and thoroughly appreciated. In “Wars of decolonization” (1947-1975) the authors deal with the old British and French powers in Asia and Africa and the demise of their old empires.  In “From the Sinai to Port Stanley” (1967-1982) the authors discuss the Six Day War up to the famed Falklands War, which saw Margaret Thatcher showing what Britain could do in 1982 to preserve its global power and historical reputation.

In “The Cold War Denouement” the authors deal with the most key event post-WW2, which is the end of the biggest rivalry of the 20^th century leading to the end of the Soviet Union. In “The New World Disorder” (1991-1999) the authors cover a period where the rules are rewritten gradually and led by the US and by extension the West. In “The War of Afghanistan” (2001-2021) the authors do not deal with the Soviet war we all remember, but the one that started post-9-11 when US forces dislodged Al Qaeda and ended the Taliban rule for twenty years, only to let it back in two years ago—this with a reputational blow to US leadership and a disgrace for women and young girls. In “The Iraq War” the authors deal with another 9-11-related war. One that was also a continuation of the war that President George H.W. Bush did not want to end by seizing Baghdad in 1990, but his son orchestrated on the false premise Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (leading to Colin Powell losing some of his well-deserved aura as he famously made the wrong case). This war, opposed by Western countries like France, led to what became known as the Arab Spring with unimageable consequences for the Middle East. In “Vladimir Putin’s Existential War against Ukraine (2022-)” the authors focus on the return of history in Europe and a Russia going back to imperial delusion. Finally, the authors deal with the “The Wars of the Future”—conflicts that will involve expected tech features, where AI would not be absent. After the book was already published, history repeated itself putting Israel back at the forefront of Middle Eastern warfare with its global implications.

“Conflict” is a great book both in terms of history as well as tactical and strategic warfare, the latter being the focus for Petraeus and Roberts. It is not easy reading and is very detailed, one of the useful features being to remind us of many episodes of history that we might have forgotten, even if war is unexpectedly and sadly back on our menu these days. If anything, it reminds us, especially in Europe, that, while war is not desirable, it is not just a matter for history books. As the Roman author Publius Flavius Venetius Renatus used to say: “Si vis pacem para bellum” (if you want peace prepare for war), a quote that NATO, a reflection of the essential and hopefully enduring transatlantic alliance, would support, all the more in our Europe today.   

Warmest regards,

Serge             

24-1-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

As we go into 2024 we see many articles, in leading publications and from think tanks, stressing the key challenges the world will be facing due to many issues like an increasingly politically unstable America, an ongoing Ukraine war, or a worsening Middle East. As we go into an election year in America and many liberal and not so liberal democracies globally (70, or half of the world population), it is useful to look at the drivers of liberal democratic decline in the West. While addressing this matter, it is worth noting that elections are also held in countries like Russia, but they are more formal than real, with the outcome already known and thus not a sign of democracy.

The main issues that have hurt our democratic West are a hodgepodge of features, at times inter-linked, that, put together, foster a weakened socio-political system that keeps gradually declining, while simpler autocracies and dictatorships keep thriving the world over. Some of these features are the drastic change of younger generations’ political views, the impact of “hate” social media, the decline in formal education, the excesses of capitalism, the mismanaged migration used as a populist selling point, and the lack of defense readiness on the part of most countries – all while rational discourse increasingly falls on deaf ears.       

The hodgepodge of Western democratic decline features

The young, who used to demonstrate in major cities the Western world-over in 1968, while wanting governments to adopt very radical economic and social policies, are no longer there, many having grown up conservative or far more moderate in a natural life development. However, today younger generations are often keener to adopt extreme-right policies to deal with key issues such as immigration. The extreme-right National Rally led by Marine Le Pen, now the second political party in France, and a serious contender to lead the country in 2027, enjoys the support of a large part of the younger French today.

Social media have contributed to the younger generations adopting extreme policies, as knowledge is no longer perceived to be based on classical education and schools, but laptop screens and indeed social media. While each country is different, the young generation, as they reach voting age, naturally listen more easily to populist leaders who reflect the extreme views on many a social media channel. The older generations – especially the 60+ age group – will generally tend to be the ones to uphold traditional liberal democratic values, also as they have a more vivid knowledge of the 20^th century with its two World Wars and nuclear bomb-flavored Cold War.   

The lack of formal education is also becoming a feature (if not a factor) of younger voters backing extreme-right candidates or populist leaders. The US is a case in point, with the vast majority of voters with no college degrees – young or not – backing Trump who, in typical fashion, claims to love “the uneducated ones”. Interestingly the college-educated Americans nicknamed by economist Thomas Piketty “the Brahmin Left” tend to shift to liberal positions also as a reaction to Trump populism, also often reflecting their residing in large urban centers, which tend to be less conservative or indeed reactionary than rural areas.   

Capitalism is not helping today. Free markets, that underpinned Western and world growth, are out of control. There is a feeling of Wild West at play, that is also worsening feelings of social inequalities. Growing up the ladder through work, and indeed capitalism, is no longer clear to many. Leading capitalist figures such as Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg, who are the new and even more powerful Rockefeller or Vanderbilt, while highly successful, are hardly role models (even if Bill Gates and others are around). In addition, the wealth of the top five billionaires has more than doubled since 2020, creating a further social disconnect. Recent news such as the annual salary and dividends of GBP300 m of Denise Coates, the CEO of Bet363, the UK gambling group is simply out of the world we knew. While US CEOs earned 21 times the average salary in 1965, today’s number is 344 times. The news that Taylor Swift, a clearly business-gifted singer, became a billionaire in 2023 are senseless at too many levels, all the more given the inequalities the world (including the West) knows, even if such situations are created as people, at times struggling, attend her concerts and buy her songs. Capitalism has become a system of excesses that are allowed by the legal system that is used and protected by its beneficiaries and their vast wealth, under the pretense that all benefit.

Migration is a key issue in the US today, like it was in Europe since 2015-16, and the aftermath of the Arab Spring, that also created local civil wars, prompting many to go for a better life elsewhere. Migration is used by hard right parties as a tool to grab votes in the name of national identity, while the problem today is also more acute than ever, as seen by the US-Mexican borders or on Italian shores. The problem has been compounded by a combination of moderate European governments losing much voter support through not wanting to adopt policies that would have been seen as akin to racial discrimination, while also needing cheap labor for their economy – as was the case for Merkel’s German economy nearly ten years ago, thus setting precedents that kept encouraging unwanted migration.

Apart from the US, the West and especially Europe may not be prepared today for an unwanted major war scenario. Old military powers, like France and Britain, are still very good at special operations, as often seen in the Middle East and Africa. But the talented professional soldiers on their own might not be able to counter a large-scale military aggression from a country like Russia and its allies in Europe. After 30 years of peaceful globalization, we live in times taking us back to the 20^th century and its major conflicts. As a Dutch senior commander of NATO rightfully sadly stated, the populations of Europe would simply not be ready or able to fight today, even to defend their freedom and democratic system. This fact also reflects a lack of community feeling at the national level of many countries, whose populations are no longer concerned on matters of war and peace or freedom preservation, as if those themes were from another age.     

Rational discourse no longer resonates well with many voters also, when they face daily situations like those living in the Southern American borders with Mexico. Principles are hard to matter in those cases also, as time goes by and nothing happens to fix what is not livable with 35% of Republican voters (likely hard core and Trump supporters) still believe in a rising trend that the “January 6” insurrection that stormed the US Capitol was a product of the FBI, which defies any logic. Ninety-one indictments against Trump do not seem to matter to his supporters, who feel invigorated by these actual facts, as if they were proof of a conspiracy by a deep state against their good leader.  Re-elections of moderate governments look increasingly challenging, with polls showing only a one-third success rate across Western countries today (although polls do change as elections get closer and are under-way).     

It is also clear that once rising to power, or having won key elections, many populist leaders, especially in Western countries, put “water in their wine” as the French would say. The recent examples of Georgia Meloni, as Italian prime minister, is very telling, but so are the examples of Geert Wilders in Netherlands or so far Javier Milei in Argentina. The reality of power, all the more in major Western countries, dictates populist winners to throw away many of their principles, a fact that should be stressed to the younger generations and all voters. All the more so as these populist winners are made to win elections these days, but not to exercise power in the best of ways, also given their overall backgrounds.    

Some thoughts to revive the Western liberal democratic course

While possibly naïve, there are solutions which, put together, could change the self-harming decline of Western democracy, and indeed civilization. These simple, but at times tough measures, all inter-linked and part of a Western society revival program, could involve an old-fashioned return to more driven parental guidance, civic education in schools, more sensible regulation of social media, increased taxes of top corporate and individual earners, as well as new tech developments like AI, and more realistic policies on the part of Western governments on issues like migration, as well as the institution, or return, of a national military service given our challenging times and societal needs.

Some could argue that this proposed wide-ranging approach would amount to a form of “dirigisme” that would go against liberalism and its spirit of “laissez faire” (do what you want), but countries need to go back to better social frameworks through which liberalism and democracy can endure. Liberalism should not be a tool for chaos, and our times require some decisive action, both from democratic governments and societies at large in partnerships – so we can survive and keep thriving.    

Both parents (admittedly in traditional families) and schools should work together to ensure that children in their teenage years are able to deal with domestic and world issues in a rational and sensible way. Parents should be more assertive in taking care of their children, and not allow them to stay for hours locked in their rooms watching and listening to social media, whose contents are often damaging to society, or playing video games for hours at a time (on a light note, this approach will come short of dealing with “watching one’s phone while walking down the street” so as to avoid any collision but it is a sound start). Schools, starting in early grades, should develop civic duty courses focused on societal and political matters, stressing the different viewpoints attached to them. The parental-school partnership goal would be to decrease the “hate” social media mind invasion, while giving children a fairer understanding of the issues of our time, and why democracy needs to be preserved.  It is worth noting that some Western governments are already taking some steps, as seen with President Macron’s proposed policies—part of his “civic rearmament” in January to regulate children’s screen time, and also introduce compulsory school uniforms, the latter to develop some better sense of community beyond social differences. 

Regulations should be more severe as to the hate contents from social media, while being fair as to freedom of speech, the latter a challenging balance to reach and an issue especially sensitive in the US today. The point is not to favor any political agenda, but to bring some normalcy leading to more reasonable thinking, and thus approaches to key societal matters, all the more by young generations who will also grow up and lead societies in the future. Similarly, and putting aside all their clear benefits, tech and AI companies should be regulated in a suitable manner to ensure they do not end up “managing” societies directly or indirectly. The EU has already taken steps, now followed by the US, to control notably Big Tech more adequately, also given their strong financial power and massive societal clout.    

Taxation should be reviewed, ideally in a coordinated manner throughout the West, to ensure that sanity comes back and net earnings are no longer out of this world, this for corporations and individuals, and not to let a societal disconnect, however legally framed, to endure. There is a need for governments to keep supporting fair free markets while restoring societal sanity via taxation and fund the lives of those in real need, so as to preserve the social contract. Similarly, AI companies should be taxed in a way that would help fund jobs to be likely lost by so many individuals due to this key tech development that is still unclear and quite worrisome as to its real benefits for society and its well-being (it is amusing to know that both Bernie Sanders and Bill Gates suggested a tax for “job-taking robots” in the past). While the West would engage in a societally-driven tax reassessment it would take appropriate measures to ensure that countries that do not follow suit, or top earning corporates or individuals that move to low if not zero tax jurisdictions, do not benefit from any resulting economic advantage and are publicly identified – putting the start of an end to new non-exotic tax paradises as they would think of rising.   

Government policies led by liberal democratic governments should be able to address sensitive issues liberal democrats traditionally averted from managing, out of social unease, like immigration. It should not be an expression of Nazism to want one’s country to keep its national identity and manage a sensible immigration program. Nor should it be forbidden to enforce the control of one’s own borders. New approaches to these issues would deprive extremist populist parties from winning elections across the West, while forgetting about them once in power and facing its reality. Democracies need to address unwanted migration as it should be, and frontally – with care for all parties involved, notably their own citizens. It would be best to set and enforce workable policies to deal frontally with unwanted immigration, while realizing that some immigration is needed in many key economic and social sectors in the West, and avoiding drastic and last resort questionable programs of shipping back individuals to Rwanda or Albania.    

Finally, there is a dual need to restore a sense of community at the national level of most Western countries, while getting their populations better ready to defend their freedom, and indeed liberal democracy, against any aggression from autocratic powers using wars as an easier way to cement their power at home. The best way to achieve this dual objective, that is key given our newly challenging times, is to institute or re-institute a form of national military service to educate young populations in the basic art of warfare, and also to cement national communities across social classes. Until the mid-1990s, France had a one-year military service for all physically able young men to train them on military matters and give them a sense of national belonging. The end of the Cold War put an end to that process which could be restarted with EU nations also managing exchange programs, as a way to cement the EU project. And young women could also take part in this key process. From a geostrategic standpoint, European nations alone should reconsider national military services, all the more so in the context of a potential return of Donald Trump in the White House and an always-possible withdrawal from NATO (some even seeing this drastic scenario as a disguised blessing, needed to build a stronger and more independent EU or Europe).      

Those suggestions, the list of which could easily be increased, would be clearly challenging, if not impossible for some, to put in place. There is no simple solution, but a concerted and inter-linked approach, which while not being perfect, may be the only way to focus the minds and gradually reverse a trend that risks destroying a still-young historical concept we call modern liberal democracy. Holding elections is not enough today, and may lead to autocracy going forward. Doing nothing and hoping for the best only benefits ill-equipped populist-extremists without any meaningful societal gains in sight. 

Warmest regards

Serge

8-1-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

As we went through the challenging COP28, the latest annual episode of the global grand mass of climate change fighting, hosted by leading oil producer Dubai (creating much early controversy), I thought it would be useful to recap key features of what we know as climate change or global warming and ways to fight it. This Interlude will be thus focused on basic facts and thoughts about where we are on this key matter for human civilization and how to fight it best. While geopolitical unrest and wars we know matter, there are issues that also need our focus, this for future generations and indeed human civilization.

While I am keen on the world doing its best to alleviate the causes of global warming, it is admittedly a new field for me. I was born the year of JFK’s presidential win, a time when we were rightly focused on economic growth, while gradually adjusting to a post-WW2 Cold War that would last for another 30 years. It would also lead to a growing globalization that many of us start regretting today, given its key peaceful features. Very few of us thought about the impact of carbon dioxide in our lives, being very happy to drive great cars and enjoy flying the world over.

Here are a few key points focused on global warming and some of its contributors. I hope that all my scientific friends and experts will forgive me for excessively summarizing matters.       

1. Climate change is unequivocal since 2007 with thousands of research studies clearly making the case, together with its human involvement, since the Industrial Revolution. Climate change worsened in a much warmer way as economic growth was the clear focus, also fueled by consumer demand that industries naturally responded to at a time when climate did not matter. 

• While the climate was warmer millions of years ago (by ten degrees), global warming accelerated much faster over the last 10,000 years due to human impact and, again, the need for economic development since the mid-19^th century. That development itself had a faster path in the 20^th and fast-globalized (until now) 21^st centuries.   

• The concentration of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere has risen by 42% since 1850. Today and as Saudi Arabia and Russia know only too well 40bn tons of CO₂ are released every year by the fossil fuel industry globally.

• While CO₂ in small doses is helpful to avoid the planet freezing, its human-produced quantities have massively contributed to global warming (even more than other natural culprits, like volcanoes). As the Earth needs to adjust its temperature by evacuating excess CO₂, decarbonization has become a key strategic matter for industries well beyond profit-making.

• CO₂ also clearly stimulates the growth of plants, through what is known as “greening” which is a positive development even though it consumes more water. This has resulted in a more intensive agriculture in China and India, though without compensating for the tropical deforestation we saw in Brazil in recent years and its associated biodiversity loss. Forests also play a key role in reducing carbon dioxide as they are living direct air capture machines.  

• Humankind is often slow moving to do the right thing, all the more when economic interests are at stake (and some countries are understandably highly dependent on oil and gas production). At COP28 the heads of the IMF, European Commission and WTO stressed the challenging “trade off of short-term financial health versus the long-term health of the planet”. As such the best way to reduce CO₂ and greenhouse gas emissions would be to engage globally in “carbon pricing”, making polluters pay for what they emit under the form of tax (some revenues – the IMF estimates 20% – that would be reallocated to poor households who may suffer from the needed transition) and emissions trading schemes. Such a way forward would create an incentive to shift to cleaner energy sources, while being cost-efficiently revenue-generating for countries for public investment or other tax cutting and would fairly target those producers and consumers that are the most responsible for carbon emissions. Fifty countries have already followed that approach, but more are needed, as well as international cooperation through framework agreements, to lower trade distortions and ensure reduced competitiveness. This approach naturally has many facets at the global level beyond the scope of this short Interlude.

• While the purpose of this Interlude is to address the reality of climate change, and what is behind global warming, while seeing what humankind could do to reduce it by focusing on CO₂, the affected areas and thus battlefields are plentiful.  Climate change massively impacts glaciers, sea levels, hurricanes, the acidification of oceans, droughts, heat waves, floods, mega-fires, biodiversity and even polar bears and many other species beyond man. Global warming is a lethal game-changer that impacts the future of human civilization like no other threats before.   

Climate change deniers find it very challenging to make their case today, even if social media and the like provide them with tools to argue their point on a non-scientific, not to say crazy basis. In our strange times, many people do not need evidence, less so scientific evidence, to support themes that make little sense. This denier group, however, finds it hard to resonate among the “thinking” crowd today – even if they reach many gullible and passionate followers looking for outlets for their existential and societal anger.     

Hard right parties in Europe have seized on the perceived financial impact on living standards of fighting climate change (exacerbated by post-Covid austerity-driven public spending cuts and the energy constraints felt with the Ukraine war) to add this matter to their usual migration and national identity programs. On a side note, the latter two matters, largely and mistakenly neglected by liberal democrats as being too sensitive, opened a vote-grabbing avenue to extremists even if they all tend to practically moderate their positions once having won elections as seen with Georgia Meloni in Italy or recently Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. On the same basis, Donald Trump, now the US climate change denier supremo, clearly stated his “drill, drill, drill” support of fossil fuels (many producers being his backers) if winning the US presidency in 2024, again adding this new hard right theme to his old US-China Cold War focus, a hard to go away Putin-friendly lack of interest in Ukraine and NATO, increased protectionism and unprecedented isolationism at many levels, and his case (which, in all fairness, could be understood better if one lived there) for “more walls” at the Mexican border today.

The good news since the game-changing COP20 in Paris in 2015 is that a vast majority of countries across the various global geopolitical divides now supports global warming resolutions to decrease its increasing trend. One of the last economic sectors COP28 members focused on was food production, which was not an obvious candidate versus oil and gas producers, but shows the global warming footprint to be gradually dealt with as the key issue it is. In spite of such positive COP28 developments and the hard-negotiated final wording stressing a commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, it is clear that vested interests, often national in nature, make it hard to get tangible results as seen with the resolution to decrease coal consumption two years ago which led to no change as of today.  

While fighting for liberal democratic values, all the more as Europe and the Middle East go back to more uncertain times and a number of key elections are on the horizon, it is also our moral duty combined with vested interests to fight climate change and ensure our world keeps growing as it should even if financial and restructuring costs may be high on the way.   

Warmest regards,

Serge